not sure what today is

so what's up...don't know what today is...want to say wednesday. have to get my days down in hebrew. today we did the thing that gave me the name for this blog. we went to the balagan...balagan in hebrew is "mess" and that was an apt description.

it was essentially a chuck e cheese on steroids and without as faithful adult supervision. there were simply too many kids...it was great! laughter and yelling everywhere. i had a wonderful time playing basketball, catching up with some of my fellow madrichim, bouncing around in inflatable jungle gyms, you get the picture.

balagan is apparently russian in origin, or at least that's what my jeep tour driver told me yesterday. the phrase yala balagan takes mess and puts it together with the arabic word yala which means something like "let's go." together it means literally "let's go mess." it's a fun one.

so we did the balagan it was near haifa, about a 45 minute bus ride from t'veria (tiberias). got back and went and helped some of the israelis who work with the jewish agency preparing for their "youth futures" camp program which starts this week and which we will be assisting them with next week. i made a giant falafel and a giant pizza out of paper...i mean big, i'll post pictures...with a great guy named avner.

after that it was back the ha astoria hotel. i went for a great run on the outskirts of town and made my way to a high point where i could see most of the city. i wanted to get out in the rural parts but couldn't find my way, next time. t'veria is situated on a hill so running is all hill training.

now i'm back at the hotel, one of the members of my group, avital, was really kind and brought be back some pizza while i caught up with the internet. we're going to head to a kibbutz in a little bit and meet some of the locals. ok...no editing, just getting this all down. l'hitraot.